This invention relates to apparatus for filleting fish and more particularly to a fixture in which a dressed fish may have its spine and remaining bones attached thereto stripped from the body of the fish, and at the same time, separate the body into two boneless fillets.
Sport fishing is an extremely popular pastime and also constitutes a principal source of food. It is not uncommon for individual or small groups of fishermen to catch a large number of pan fish, such as perch, bluegills, bass, and the like, in a single day. To prevent spoilage of the fish it is necessary that they be dressed fairly promptly. This usually involves the scaling, beheading, and eviscerating of each fish as well as the removal of the dorsal, ventrile, and caudal fins. If a fish is to be filleted, the opposite sides of the fish body are separated from the spine and ribs, thereby providing two boneless fillets. Filleting conventionally is accomplished manually by the use of a small, extremely sharp knife, but considerable skill is required in the filleting process to accomplish the task quickly and without waste.
Commercial fisheries or packing houses sometimes make use of large filleting machinery, such as that disclosed in German Pat. Nos. 630,470 and 632,024, but such machinery is not portable and creates a fair amount of waste. In addition, such machinery presents problems in ensuring that the bones on both sides of a fish body are removed.
An object of the present invention is to provide a portable, manually operable fish filleting device which accomplishes the filleting of a dressed fish quickly, easily, efficiently and without requiring prior experience.